5 March 2025

STORAGE

• Ascend Elements narrows the scope of its planned Kentucky battery recycling factory as it cancels a $164 million federal grant to produce cathode active materials and instead plans to use proprietary technology to make lithium carbonate. (Canary Media)
• “This has been a never-ending rabbit hole”: Texas residents push back on a company’s plan to build a 100 MW battery storage facility in a rural community. (Killeen Daily Herald)

GRID

• Atlanta overtakes northern Virginia as a hotspot for data center construction, with 2,160 MW worth of development underway in the Georgia metro area. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
• Widespread storms leave more than 300,000 Texans and more than 100,000 Alabama households without power. (Dallas Morning News, AL.com)

FOSSIL FUELS

• Dominion Energy asks Virginia regulators to approve construction of four gas-fired peaker units totaling 944 MW at a plant where it recently retired two coal-fired units. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
• The Department of Government Efficiency flags seven mine safety offices in Kentucky for closure, though at least some of those offices remain open for now. (Lexington Herald-Leader)
• An Appalachian Power executive tells West Virginia lawmakers the low price of natural gas is the primary reason why the utility doesn’t run its three coal-fired power plants in the state at a higher rate. (West Virginia Public Broadcasting)
• Coal companies owned by West Virginia U.S. Sen. Jim Justice agree to pay off $409,041 in delinquent mine safety fines over the next two months, more than a year after previously agreeing to do so. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
• As GOP Congress members push to revoke the Biden administration’s ban on offshore drilling, Florida Republicans say they still don’t want drilling off their coast. (E&E News)
• A judge allows the Mountain Valley Pipeline to proceed with its prosecution against a protestor who chained himself to pipeline equipment, but rules against the company’s efforts to link the individual to a broader conspiracy. (Bloomberg)

SOLAR

• An Oklahoma city council considers a 592.8 kW solar installation at a recreation center and an 88 kW system at a maintenance building. (OU Daily)
• A company secures financing to build solar projects totaling 441 MW at three sites in Arkansas and Illinois to supply Facebook’s parent company. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
• A company is selected as the contractor to build a 252 MW solar farm in Texas. (news release)

WIND

• A judge grants a temporary stay to allow a pair of companies to appeal a ruling that their wind farm had trespassed on Osage Nation land and needs to be dismantled. (KOTV)

EFFICIENCY

• The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers launches an infrastructure upgrade at an Alabama engineering and support center intended to increase energy efficiency and replace 13.5 MW generators with 15 MW gas-fired versions. (news release)

POLITICS

• U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright promotes nuclear energy development but denies climate change during a visit to Tennessee’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is home to nuclear research and the Climate Change Science Institute. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)
• The Trump administration announces plans to drop a federal lawsuit against a Louisiana synthetic rubber manufacturer accused of worsening cancer risks for a neighboring, majority-Black community. (Associated Press)